Something Phobic

Ed looked at the single camera standing opposite a large steel table. The contents of the room had been completely removed and replaced by furniture that made the room look more than an interrogation chamber than anything else, even though those were removed by Ed's order shortly after they had arrived back in South Africa. The seemed to swallow the table, steel chair, and camera whole as well as Ed, who was standing in the doorway.

            Ian had told him that he wanted to log all of their experiences from the start to the Fall, and Ed found it amusing. Why, after all these years would the past be relevant to the future? If one thing Ian had taught him could be considered valuable, it was that never to hover in the past. He smirked and moved over to the table, pressed the record button on the camera, then went to sit down. Staring blankly at the camera, he began to smile.

            "What am I doing," he mumbled and scratched at his beard. "Okay. So, Ian would probably have taken quite a sentimental route for his first log," He began, then sorted again as he thought about what to follow that with. "Anyway. Where did it all go south, I guess the point of these are... If you were to ask me where I think it had all gone south, I would probably say that it had begun going south long before we were even drafted.

            "I was the first. They began by making me do stupid runs, and had me do fetch assignments like a little puppy. A month or so in, I demanded a partner. Without my input, the drafted Dev. We were two, then. And that was when our talents first began to shine."

Dev sat at his laptop, coding away on something that when Ed tried to understand, only made his head ache more, only latching on to the headache he already had due to lack of caffeine. They were in a half destroyed, filthy New York apartment building that had a decent vantage over the building their target were staying in. Both of them were still in their very early twenties; Ed had just shaven all his hair off, and Dev had grown hair longer even than Ed's were before the shave. Flies was circling their Chinese take-out of the second night's surveillance when the target came into view again. For a pudgy old man with a shiny bald head and extremely thick brows to compliment his mountainous moustache, he had quite a lot of women with him all the time, though they probably were just dolled-up hookers and nothing more. The recorder was rolling in one of the corners of the room; after 5 boring days of surveillance, they were sure that this was their guy.

            "I can have his head right here, right now," Ed whispered as he looked through the foot-long scope of his sniper rifle.

            "First we get proof," Dev said and rolled his eyes at the thought of someone ordering him to do something.

            "We have tapes and tapes full of proof!" Ed retorted and lifted his head from the rifle. He saw Dev shrug, drink from his water bottle, and get lost in his coding again, his lit cigarette still hanging on his lower lip. Ed sighed, put the earphones back into his ears and pressed the play button on his iPhone. He then squashed a spider that sped from a crack in the wall toward where he lay with his rifle. He tried his best not to squeal.

Ed snorted and looked up at the door, which had been closed since he had entered the room. He wondered what Ian would think if he found out that his fear of spiders had still not subsided, given all that had happened. He looked back at the camera again, his expression smooth and serious.

            "We were young, and equal. We had no leader and we liked it that way. Sometimes we were aided by a third agent, but it was only after 4 more assignments, and after Dev got captured by that very same bastard and I put a sharpened steel rod in his head, that the higher-ups demanded we get someone to keep our asses in line." Ed laughed. "But first, more surveillance..."

JR was sitting at the bar, looking through the glass panes that made up the sliding doors to the deck. He had already drunk all of his alcohol and had moved on to Ed's. He hadn't talked to Laura at all yet, and he was sure that she must have been worried sick. This was the first girl in an extremely long time that he knew was special, and he knew that he was messing it up more and more by the second, but he couldn't get himself to ease off the bottle of whiskey in his hand, and pick up his phone which had 4 missed calls all over the notification bar. He had heard someone come in, but would not have guessed that it would be Connor who came up the stairs.

            "I see you're still alive and well, sort of," Connor said. His American accent. Had never bothered JR, but today was clearly the exception. "Laura asked me to come and see you. She's worried, you know."

            "So you guys are BFF's now?" JR said with a grin, though extremely fake.

            "Something like that," Connor replied as a matter of fact. "You should get back to Prime. Laura has been ordered to check on things at Romulus and is slated to leave tonight. You can still make the assignment if you get there in time."

            "Another bomb is going to go off."

            "Where?"

            JR shrugged.

            "Who told you, at least?"

            "That bitch of yours... Whats-her-face."

            Connor stood up from the barstool and walked away. "Get your act together kid, or I'll get it together for you." He then walked out the door. He wanted to slam his face in right then and there, but knew that JR wasn't himself. He would have better luck getting the info out of Abigail herself.

            JR had emptied the bottle before Connor's word had finally reached his brain, and he thought about Laura so far away from him. He reached for another one of Ed's whiskey bottles, then opted for his phone instead. He got up and hazed his way to the deck where he walked into the sliding door. He paid it no mind, however, and walked into it again while dialing Laura.

That night Ed walked by CNet, giving it a nod and met up with Ian on the balcony. It had been quite a while since they had actually spent some time, however little, contemplating life while staring at the great beyond.

            "Saw the news?" Ed asked and leaned on the balcony.

            "A bit," Ian said with a smile. "He's going on a date tomorrow."

            Ed nodded, quite amused at that bit of information, then looked down at his hand. All day, he had gone about his usual tasks regarding Prime, and not once had it occurred to him that he had acquired an extra limb that morning. CNet had fixed him up as soon as he woke and made breakfast for Laura. On their own little date, she noticed. He didn't have CNet cover it up with skin or whatever it was that the AI had called it -- he wanted to be reminded of his missing finger. It was a part of him now.

            "Nice, how long has it been?"

            "Oh a couple of years. You should have been there!" Ed joked, and the two of them smiled. "The thing in my spine feels a bit off, though."

            "I can imagine. Danny will have to check to see how safe it is for you, though, and whether your body likes the new changes or not."

            "Yeah yeah. So the big day is closing in!"

            "It sure is," Ian said and snorted. In all honesty he hadn't given it much thought with the latest happenings. It had been put on the back-burner, and it kind of just stayed there. Time for a change. Ian said good night to Ed and hurried to his room where he flipped open his laptop and began researching venues.